


on love

by cacaoflavoured



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 14:11:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8147042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cacaoflavoured/pseuds/cacaoflavoured
Summary: Mother never teaches you love, but she does. She teaches you well.





	

**on what it isn’t: decade-old nightmares and skeletons in the closet**

You wake up in a cold sweat with the image of people long gone burned to the back of your eyelids. You wearily try to blink the ghastly visages away, to no avail.

Waxen, sagging skin. Dark-as-night bags under eyes. Thinning hair. Cracked lips. Blood, blood– blood everywhere.

The halogen lights in your room are on, the way you like it. Bright white, crisp and jarring. Catching and keeping your attention from up above, embedded in the tall, industrial ceiling. You make sure to stare until they blind you.

-

Saeran once told you a ghost story when you were both 7 years old. You think of it now, all of a sudden.

“Hyung, did you know? There’s a scary, pale woman who comes by our neighbourhood every night and torments little boys! She screams and cries and makes scratching noises, and if you catch a glimpse of her you’ll–”

You tried desperately, back then, to hide your fear. You covered little Saeran’s mouth with your two little hands. “Saeran-ah, you’re a dummy. Where did you hear that from anyway? Everyone knows ghosts aren’t real. Plus, if they are, you just gotta beat ‘em up!”

Young Saeran pried your fingers away from his lips, continuing his tale with a frown, “You can’t beat ‘em up if you get eaten alive…”

“… Fine. A-And how do you fend her off?” You blurted, voice shaking, will breaking. You made a point to try and look tough– a hyung has to protect his dongsaeng after all. You didn’t know if your attempt did you any good, though. Saeran looked fairly unimpressed.

“You have to sleep with the light on! The ghost lady hates bright lights.”

-

The realization hits you like a ton of bricks, sitting there in your bedroom so removed from it all. You stare dizzily at the linoleum of the floor making a concerted effort not to throw up. Ah, the story Saeran told was not an invented one, nor a tall tale fabricated by one of the neighbourhood brats, heard on the wind through the window.

-

… And in the dimness of the little attic space you shared with your crimson-haired brother, she would wander. Ghost lady none other than your own mother. She’d drag her heels across the creaky floorboards, walking indoors with her dusty outdoor shoes. You hated the dirt she’d get everywhere.

Some days, she would be alright. Things in general, they’d be alright. She’d just mumble to herself while pacing– you and Saeran were none the wiser to her demons. Some nights you slept in heavenly bliss, curly-haired brothers wound together like a coil… so tight you looked less like children and more like a litter of small animals.

Other days, though, it was bad. Real bad. Her teeth would chatter so loud it sounded like the grim reaper himself was shaking a bag of bones in your ear. Or, worse yet, she would sometimes mumble and curse and scream at the shadow of your absent father. And even worse than that? The scratching. She’d scratch the labels off her medication bottles. The click, clacking of nails haunts you.

(You hear yourself make the noise sometimes when you get nervous. Like mother like son. Regrettable. When you do hear it, it only makes you more nervous. So you tap louder. You’ve driven yourself mad repeating the cycle some nights: 3AM tapping, 4, 5, 6AM tapping.)

When it got real bad she’d scream at you or Saeran. Mostly Saeran– he was always weaker, meeker. Easier to bully. He didn’t ever fight back or defend himself, just clenched his teeth, balled his fists, and cried.

She’d shout crude, painful things, which little boys wouldn’t fully understand but could parse a vague gist of.

“Disgusting,” She’d scream, snuffing out dusty cigarette butts in poor Saeran’s hair. She hated it. It was the same hair that your father had. Mahogany in the dark, crimson in the light. A curly mop whenever left to its own devices. She was a diseased woman whose thought process did not follow logic… it worked this way: don’t make her mad, and if you do, expect retribution. Expect total destruction.

You didn’t know how the two of you could avoid making her mad for being born a certain way.

(Maybe if you hadn’t made the wrong choice, things would have been different… you can’t stop thinking this. But you also can’t turn back time. You’ve tried. Spent many of your teenage and adult years trying to invent a time machine. No luck thus far.)

What you hated was the smell that was made when mother exacted her retribution. Hated her aftermaths and consequences. Hated it so bad. You could never scrub the sulfuric smell away from Saeran’s clothes. Not even if you scrubbed until your hands were raw.

One time, mother got her heart’s desire. Saeran thought the fire that had started in his hair could be snuffed with his shirt. He was wrong. He was screaming (crying, begging, praying– you try to shut it out) louder than a siren, and there was fire everywhere. And the smell of burning wood, textiles caught on fire, soiled sheets. You shudder.

Get the water, get the water, get the water. She screamed it so hard you can still hear it in the hollow of your ear, ricocheting. You ran so fast to the bathroom you thought your little legs would snap.

The police arrived when it got bad enough and there was no justice. No verdict. You weren’t surprised. Authority meant shit-all, far as you were concerned. Police were authority just like mother was authority– did squat for you and your brother. Good for pretty much nothing.

“Little boys love to play with fire,” she said to them pleasantly. And they believed her.

Skin doesn’t catch quite as easily as hair. The exercise taught mother this. So that was her plan B.

Saeran has the welts all over his body to this day. You, lucky number 7, fared much better. A handful of welts on your right forearm. Little searing punishments for running medicine to Saeran too slow. One in your left palm. Three in your right.

From there, if she felt particularly sick she would “forget” to feed the two of you. She would bruise arms and batter heads. 

(And now that you’ve begun thinking about darker days, your mind doesn’t stop; alas, it is weird how your brain works. Like clockwork. One gear turns into the next. And on and on it goes, a well-oiled machine.

Vanderwood once noted that the lights in your room never turned off.

“You’re a monster… do you even sleep?”

You dismissed her with a, “Silly Ms. Vanderwood… the great Defender of Justice doesn’t sleep! Sleep is for the weak!”

But that very evening her words rang in your head and you entertained the thought of trying something different to get some shut-eye for once. You really did try to sleep with the lights off that night. You dangled what felt like a million glow-in-the-dark stars from the ceiling with kitchen twine. The effort gave you a kink in the neck that didn’t go away for weeks.

When night fell, you reluctantly said a prayer before you shut the lights.

It was the absolute worst. The hairs on your neck stand when you think about it now. That night, you dreamt lucidly of blood. Could taste the metal on your tongue. A night that took place before the fire. Before the abuse got so badly out of hand that no one could stop it: not you, not Saeran, not mother.

You had a chance, before Rika and V came into the picture. A chance to put it all past you. Start anew.

Mother was clearly sick. Neither you nor Saeran ever denied it. As the two of you grew [legs longer, voices deeper, shoulders wider], so too did she. Grow worse, that is [cursing louder, at increasingly more ungodly hours in the morning, less and less reasonable justifications for brutality].

When her illness hadn’t yet become so bad, she would take medication to curb the disease. She had set aside on her vanity a myriad of colourful bottles: translucent red, opaque seafoam green, white as bones, you name it. You never knew what each of them was for, still don’t. They sat prettily on the wooden surface until that night.

It was 3 in the morning.

You heard mother scratching at labels in your semi-lucid state. Nothing out of the ordinary. Happened often enough to be normal.

But you knew there was something very wrong when you heard the heaving. Heard the gurgling of fluids. Discerned the haphazard splats as everything hit the ground.

You opened your eyes in a panic.

“Saeyoung-ah…” she moaned, a small voice coming from the hallway.

“Mother,” you answered weakly. Obedient Saeyoung.

“Come here, boy,” she rasped. More heaving.

Her rainbow pill bottles were scattered across the floor. She’d thrown up everywhere. But that wasn’t all– there was blood everywhere.

Blood caked at the corners of her cracked lips.

Blood all along the wall. Blood in the cracks in the floor. Blood and bile. Bile and blood. The stench of it all left you reeling.

“S-Saeran!” You shouted for your brother, a lifeline.

Mother grasped your arm with her leathery claw. “Call the ambulance, boy…”

Saeran stumbled over, a sleepy mixture of panic and mania in his eyes. “… W-What’s going on, hyung?” He sounded distinctly afraid, but excited. Like he was beginning to consider a strictly forbidden idea.

Mother fell to the ground like a limp sack. She hit the floor with a thud. The blood and bile pooled around her.

“Saeyoung!” She gasped, reaching for you. “My only good son…”

“Hyung, what’s wrong with mother?” Saeran’s insistent voice demanded answers that you didn’t possess.

“Saeyoung-ah, call the ambulance…”

“Why is she bleeding, hyung?”

“Call the ambulance if you love your mother.”

Good, bad. Brother, mother. Light, dark. They melded together in that instant. You knew not what to do, just that two voices called your name. Equally fervent.

“Hyung, we have to run.” Saeran was resolute. Steely. You could see the dream of ice cream and blue skies reflected in his eyes. “C’mon, I’m getting our things. We have to run.”

“Mother loves you, Saeyoung-ah.”

You couldn’t move. You stood still. Time itself stood still.

There was Saeran, your twin brother. A reflection. Two halves of a whole. He was the possibility of a brighter future.

But mother was calling, whispering that she loved you.

There was Saeran, tired and weepy eyes, thin-as-sticks limbs. You were sure you didn’t look any better. Saeran was full bellies and recoveries. Possibility, itself.

But mother was calling so desperately, whispering that she loved you.

In the ultimate act of weakness, you stormed past Saeran, to the attic bedroom, to the little black rotary phone on the nightstand. Quick, Saeyoung. Mother calls.

You called the ambulance.

They took her away, and returned her. And when she was back she was worse than ever before. Whereas before the accident she was negligent, she became abusive. She became jittery. Nails on bottles. Curses. Fires. Cigarettes on skin.

You can’t justify your choice, no, but you were a mere child who never knew love. To hear words of love from mother was otherworldly. Better than cool vanilla on your tongue. Better than sapphire skies and plush white clouds. Better than full bellies. Better than recovery. Better than possibility, itself… better than anything.

You reached for mother– craned your neck towards her love like a sunflower cranes for the sunlight.

You could never forgive yourself. Will never forgive yourself.

You weren’t scared of the blood, you were scared of your choice. One choice that could have changed it all.

The wrong choice.

I was wrong, you think in desperation.

But you can’t turn back time; you’ve tried and tried.)

-

All this is to say, to this day you think maybe, just maybe, Saeran was right all those years ago. Maybe if you had kept the light on, the monsters never would have come. Monsters are scared of the light.

(Silly Saeyoung, it was your choice that brought the monsters, you think. No light can repel the ghosts in your heart.)

You keep the light on now, wherever possible. The switch in your room is wholly neglected. It’s nothing personal, you note: you just have to ward off your own demons somehow. You don’t really care how well it works, just that you try it.

An adult man, scared of the dark. You scoff at yourself. How pathetically comedic.

Get the water, get the water, get the water. Mother’s voice repeats, quiet, then loud, then quiet again. Mother loves you.

You shove away the blankets brusquely and stand. The glass of water you prepared sits at your bedside. You don’t realize how thirsty you are until the glass is emptied too soon. Don’t feel the cold sweat until you raise a hand to the nape of your neck.

You should wash, you think to yourself. You should keep it together, Agent 707. There is another day ahead. More mysteries to unearth. More secrets to keep.

So you drag legs heavier than lead over to the shower, expertly avoid messy piles of clothing and notes on the floor. There are very few linoleum islands of cleanliness.

What a slob, you think. You can’t muster the strength to do anything about it.

When, finally, you’ve made it to the washroom with flickering lights, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror.

You are a scared animal with nowhere to hide, shivering in his own skin. With glowing yellow eyes. Her eyes.

Father’s hair and mother’s eyes. An amalgam of two people you never really knew.

When all’s said and done, you collapse into work, as you always do. Routine is a distracting and pleasant blur; sleep very little, eat very little, work a lot, eat very little, sleep very little.

Sleep is little because the ghosts dispel the gentle fog cast by routine. There is no real rest at all. There are chattering bones. Baleful nails. And fire. Smoke. Blood. Blood. Blood. Mother’s love. Your choice. Saeran’s life in your hands, falling away from your desperate fingers like sand.

Mother always comes knocking on your door at night, watches you with your own eyes.

**on what it very much is: daydreams sweeter than syrup and sun-warmed skin**

Mother never taught you to love, and her whispers were empty.

But she teaches you well. She bounds into your heart unexpectedly. Stays. Sets up shop and acts awfully persistent.

You tried to push her away in a panic. Shut out her words of love, her sweet mannerisms and her warm doe eyes. Afraid of that word, love. Afraid of its unconditionality, its unbearable lightness. The sweet taste it would leave in your mouth.

“You have to take care of yourself.” She would say quietly, battering at your defenses.

Whereas mother left you to sit in the dark, she bathes you in her sunlight.

“I made you something to eat, Seven.”

“Thanks for keeping me safe, Luciel.”

“Saeyoung-ah, I love you.”

Time passes in the blink of an eye and she remains. While mother grew sick, she somehow grows more loving as the days go.

She unearths bits and pieces of your troubled past at a time. In her eyes, you go from 707 to Luciel to Saeyoung, but still, the love stays. Tenacious and resolute.

-

You wake shivering and terrified, as you tend to. Ghastly voices ring out in your ear– get the water, get the water. Before you can even think to quench your thirst yourself, she is before you.

“Water?” She asks pleasantly, holding the glass expectantly in front of you. Her eyes are well-lit by the glow of early morning. As are her lashes: long and curled and fluttering. She is dressed in a buttercup yellow nightshirt that goes down to her knees.

“How’d you know?” You ask with a groggy groan, rubbing your eyes. You sit up with legs crossed. You take the glass with your right hand, catching her hand with the other.

She is so warm. So soft. Her fingers brush against the scars in your palm. Like she knows that they hurt despite having healed years ago.

You kiss her open hand.

“Had a feeling,” she replies warmly, quirking her lips, “Not like you have a glass every morning or anything.”

“I don’t!” You chime with a grin, hoisting her to sit in your lap, “Sometimes I have Dr. Pepper instead!”

“Gross! Not on my watch you don’t,” She laughs, a tinkling sound. Like bells. “It’s bad for your teeth.”

“I heard-” you start, mischievously positioning your hands on either of her sides, reaching up her thin nightshirt. The smoothness of her sun-kissed skin makes you flush. “-That kissing is very good for your teeth.”

“Whaaaaaat,” she giggles, rolling her eyes. She participates in your silly charades. “Where the heck did you hear that?”

“… The internet,” you say with a shrug.

She bursts out in incredulous laughter, “Sure, sure…”

“So how about it? Where’s my kiss?” You ask pleasantly, and when she playfully turns her face away, you start to tickle her. “If you don’t kiss me my teeth might rot!”

No luck.

“I worked hard to defend justice all day yesterday… don’t you think I deserve a reward?”

She squeals and writhes.

“If you can catch me maybe I’ll consider!” She giggles, jumping away nimbly and running to the living room. You chase after her, whining.

Mornings with her are like this now. 

Soft-hearted and gentle.

You head back to bed hand in hand, breathless from kisses and laughter.

You love her. Love the way she loves you. Love the two of you together. You pray your mouth tells her.

When you tangle yourselves together on the sheets, her body says she feels it too. You feel her heartbeat when you pull her close. Hear her feverish breathing in your ear.

“Take me.” She whispers her coy invitation against the shell of your ear.

“D-Don’t…” you groan, ogling her soft curves hotly, “When you say things like that I can’t… control myself.”

She makes a little humming sound and says nothing more. Both obeys and disobeys your command. Like you asked, she doesn’t speak, so her body does the talking for her.

She crawls towards you, over you. Drags a finger down your chest. Her hand wanders lower and lower.

“Shit,” you gasp. “Shit, you’re burning me up.”

She drags her fingers up your ripped jeans. Tortuously slow. Past your shins, past your thighs, by your groin. Her hands hover. Do it, your heart says. She will be good to you. Don’t, your head counters. You could fall deeper. Worse yet, she could fall deeper for you. And what about when it’s too late? When someone comes to take your life and all you hold dear and it’s her life on the line? What then?

Then nothing. Then you’ll run away together. Then you’ll fight for your lives together.

When she moves again your heart beats out of your chest. The doubtful voices in your mind hush. You make a strangled noise, forgetting to breathe for a second; eyes rolling back when she palms you so wickedly.

You swallow. Your saliva is thick as molasses.

“F-Fucking hell,” you curse.

Show restraint, you think.

You can’t.

You take her by her waist and haphazardly plop her on your lap. She yelps a little in surprise but is otherwise pleased. Grinning like a wolf. She looks mischievous. With cherry-red cheeks and a playful look in her eye. You, on the other hand, probably look so stupid– red faced and panting like a dog.

She gets to work on your jeans, excruciatingly slow.

You can’t wait– you take her delicate fingers in your left hand and get to your belt with your right. You try to undo it, but she stops you with a sickeningly seductive open-mouthed kiss. Her tongue dances against your lips… you feel dizzy.

She takes advantage of your momentary disorientation and draws your belt from its loops. She drops it on the floor. The buckle clinks against linoleum. She drags your fly down, and you can’t kick your pants off fast enough.

“I want you,” you confess in a mumble, trying not to buck up against her. You feel your blush rising up to your ears. “I want you so fucking bad. I want you to be good to me. Forever. And ever. I want to be with you… really with you. I-inside you. Ugh– I mean–”

Your clumsy honesty is good enough, it seems. She takes your enamored babbling to be a signal of some sort; so there she is, basking in the orange glow of early morning, removing her cotton nightshirt with an impish shimmy, holding your heated gaze, eyes gleaming all the while. She takes your scarred hands and places them on her sides.

You lick your lips. It’s so difficult not to take her now, when her body is so inviting and your need is so strong; you bite your bottom lip so hard you draw blood. Taste metal. Your heart is beating so fast you feel like it could break right through your ribcage.

You take her hand gingerly and press it to your chest.

“I love you, jagi,” you say in a haze. You can’t rush this. Can’t force it to be faster. You can’t do this with shoddy intentions– you have to tell her how it feels. How it feels to finally love and be loved in return. How ground-breaking, earth-shattering it all is. How she flipped your world upside down. Taught you how to love. “Believe me.”

She smiles, eyes twinkling and knowing.

She shifts on top of you, a terribly naughty sway of her hips. Your blood boils over.

You shift your weight and pin her to the bed. You hover over her.

Before you know it you let yourself get carried away by her tide, in a tempest of clumsy, passionate, and pleasurable young love. The sounds of your lovemaking echo one other– symphonious. She breathes, you breathe. She moans, you moan. I love yous and I want yous are hissed fervidly in passionate exchange.

The fire of your shared love rises. She kisses all your cigarette burns better. The only nails are hers, in your back in attempt to hold on for dear life. Teeth chatter only in bliss.

The image of her after you are both tired and spent is nothing short of a world wonder. She is breathless, bare, beautiful. Her silhouette against the rising sun and crisp white curtains gets burned behind your eyelids.

You hide the image away deep in the burrows of your heart. Your best kept secret.

“I’ve never loved anyone like this before,” you confess shyly, scratching at your hair in embarrassment, still trying to catch your breath.

“Good,” she responds, breathing too. “Me neither.”

She holds her hand out towards you and gestures with the other. “C’mon. Let’s grab a shower.”

“Okay,” you agree. The sight of her naked body still amazes you. Fascinates you. Makes you skittish. You study the small of her back. The slope of her thighs. The valley between her breasts. The space between her legs…

You try to cover up your nervousness with a joke, as you always do.

“So uh… how about round two? Ha-ha.”

She’s silent and still for a moment, before her childlike laughter fills the room.

“What, in the shower?” She smirks, devilish glint in her eyes. “Why not?”

-

You’ve always been happy to move on quickly. Saeyoung, Luciel, 707, what does it matter? To be mercurial is the very nature of your work; hopping from one identity to the next. One life to another… but you take care to note: even if all else fades away (dust to dust), you want her to stay constant. Permanent. If all else turns sour you want this one source of sweetness. She is the only happy ending that matters.

After all, on love, she is your teacher. Teaches you every day.

Taught you to love so hard she makes you cry sometimes. Taught you to love innocently, like a child. Taught you to love selflessly, unrequited. Taught you to love better. Harder. Deeper. Taught you love in every way.

You crane your neck towards her love, grow straight this time.

In the night, you fall asleep with the lights off like a baby, wrapped up in her arms. There is nothing to hide from, no need to run. The ghosts are too shy to knock– you look them square in the eyes.


End file.
